An Unexpected Week of Broadway Shows

By no fault of my own, this past week turned into "Broadway Week" for me when I saw three shows in the course of five days. How did that happen? Well, I'm not rich, so it had nothing to do with me wanting to splurge on tickets for shows, but really due all to luck.
As I posted before when I reviewed the musical Allegiance, my company is part of the team that produced the show, so I was lucky to see it in previews, but sadly the show wasn't making enough money and had to close on Valentine's Day, but as we were staff, we got tickets to the closing night show, and right up near the stage. I looked at my ticket and it said it had cost $150, so I was happy that I got it completely for free. Since the show is over now, I won't review it again, but I did notice the changes they made from when I had seen it back in October, and it was still as wonderful now as it was back then, and very bittersweet because it was over and you could tell the actors were giving it all in their final performance.

After the show, we were invited to the afterparty, which took place at Southern Hospitality, a venue owned by Justin Timberlake. There were free drinks and food and all the people involved in the show were there, including the cast, so it was fun to schmooze and pretend to be fancy, mostly because I don't feel I deserve luxury in my life, so I get excited every time something like this happens.

Then on Monday afternoon, my friend called me to ask me if I wanted to go to Hamilton and I was in shock. It's nearly impossible to get tickets except through the lottery, which is even harder to win now they moved it online and the entry numbers went from 500 to 50,000 a day. My friend had a friend who is on the daytime costume staff of the show who could get us the standing room only tickets for $40 and we had to wait until Wednesday afternoon to hear if it was all a go for us to attend and it was!

I have been waiting patiently to see this show ever since it was announced it would open on Broadway and didn't think I'd get to see it for another year until tickets became cheaper. I refused to listen to the cast recording online because I knew what had happened to my other friends who had listened to it and how obsessed they became and didn't want that to happen to me for fear of getting addicted to the music and having it ruin my life with each passing day that I couldn't see the show.

Well, I was absolutely blown away by the show. First of all, to be able to see that much diversity up on the stage, portraying people in history who were not actually people of color, was fantastic. It's so important to be able to see representation onstage, and Hamilton has got that on lockdown by having people of all backgrounds. Secondly, the music is to die for. Hip-hop and rap isn't the genre of music you'd think about when it comes to being in a musical, but the show incorporates that, as well as more traditional musical theatre melodies, but in an overarching R&B tone that goes through the whole show.

This show is just overall fantastic from the rotating set, to the beautiful costumes and talented performers who make it great. Lin-Manuel Miranda's masterpiece is bound to have a Broadway run for many, many years and I am so happy I got to see it. Now a bunch of people are asking how I got tickets, and it was truly just a fluke. The last six months has been me trying to get into this show and finally accepting defeat as I thought it would take awhile to feast my eyes upon it, but it actually happened and I have since listened to the soundtrack on repeat the last couple days and am completely obsessed with the music. Plus, I got to meet Jonathan Groff (who plays King George) in the show and he was delightful.

Then, to top off the week, last night I received free tickets to Kinky Boots through the site Show Score, which happened completely randomly (mostly because I only used the site once back in autumn of last year), but I wasn't about to say no to free Broadway tickets. I was very excited to get this email, especially since only a week or two ago I was looking at Broadway shows to potentially get rush tickets to soon and Kinky Boots was really the only one I was truly considering seeing, so it came at a good time.

Having won multiple Tony Awards a couple years ago, that it involves fierce drag queens and the fact that Wayne Brady of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" was in it, I was so excited to see this show. It's about a shoe factory that needs a new product to keep its doors open and after meeting the fabulous drag queen Lola, they begin to make fantastic boots. It's a great story about acceptance and love and I was so into the numbers that featured Lola and the drag queens.

Wayne Brady was amazing as Lola and I couldn't keep my eyes off his character the entire time he was onstage. He had upbeat songs and a beautiful ballad near the end that almost brought tears to my eyes. As for the rest of the cast; it was alright. I'm not sure if there was supposed to be a juxtaposition between the townsfolk and the drag queens, but either way, it was a moving show and I am happy I got to see it.

Now I feel like I'm in Broadway withdrawal, having had a fix of three shows and now none on the horizon. If they were just a bit cheaper I wouldn't mind splurging so much, but we'll see if I can bring myself to see some more shows coming up soon.